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Barry Defends His Daddy's Polygamy

RUSH: What Obama told these young African leaders was -- and I'm gonna quote this -- he said, "Female genital mutilation isn't a tradition worth hanging onto." Female genital mutilation is not a tradition worth hanging onto. Note that he didn't condemn female genital mutilation. That would have been telling Africans what to do. And he would never impose his views on 'em 'cause we're from the US and who are we. He just said, you know, this female genital mutilation, it's not worth hanging onto. But he doesn't condemn it. He just tells 'em I wouldn't hang onto that if I were you.

"What do you mean, Mr. Limbaugh, he didn't?" He didn't condemn it. He just told them, hey, you know what, you're not gonna get away with that. If you're gonna do that, turn it over to Boko Haram. Don't do it yourselves. And then there is this. Again at the inaugural summit of the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, another question from the audience. "I just wanted to find out how committed is the United States to assisting Africa in closing gender inequalities from contributing to gender-based violence, which threatens the achievements of many millennium development goals such as access to universal education."

Does this question make any sense to anybody? Let's try this again. Future African leader. Question. I'm gonna read the question verbatim. "I just wanted to find out how committed is the US to assisting Africa in closing gender inequalities from contributing to gender-based violence, which threatens the achievements of many millennium development goals such as access to universal education, eradicating HIV and AIDS?" Remember, the question's about gender inequalities and what would the US do to assist in closing them. Well, okay. It's kind of a -- it's a question -- you couldn't diagram that sentence. You could not diagram that. It doesn't make any sense. The modifiers are all wrong. The syntax is bad. It's like bad code in an app.

But Obama nevertheless took the question, and here is -- dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut -- the answer.

OBAMA: This is where sometimes traditions can get in the way. As many of you know my father was from Kenya. We see this in other parts of the world. Some of the old ways of gender relations might have made sense in a particular setting, all right? So in Kenya, for example, in the Luo tribe, polygamy existed. It was based on the idea that women had their own compounds, they had their own land, and so they were empowered in that area to be self-sufficient. And then urbanization happened, suddenly the men may be traveling to the city, and suddenly there is another family in the city and the women who are left back in the villages may not be empowered.

RUSH: No wonder this guy hates the suburbs. No wonder, but that's a side issue. Did you hear what you just heard? You want me to translate this for you? 'Cause I am perhaps the only one who can. All right. Listen to it again. Here's the answer. Forget the question. It's about gender inequalities and what would the US do to help Africa get rid of 'em, and Obama basically said, "Now, wait a minute. There are certain times, like when my dad was alive, that polygamy, gender inequality, hey, it was cool."

OBAMA: This is where sometimes traditions can get in the way. As many of you know my father was from Kenya. We see this in other parts of the world. Some of the old ways of gender relations might have made sense in a particular setting, all right? So in Kenya, for example, in the Luo tribe, polygamy existed. It was based on the idea that women had their own compounds, they had their own land, and so they were empowered in that area to be self-sufficient. And then urbanization happened, suddenly the men may be traveling to the city, and suddenly there is another family in the city and the women who are left back in the villages may not be empowered.

RUSH: Wait a second, now. Let's just take this phrase by phrase. 'Cause this is not hard to diagram. It's not hard to translate. It really isn't. "Okay. Well, sometimes traditions get in the way. My father was from Kenya." A, that means everything that follows is okay. Dreams from My Father. "We see in other parts of the world, some of the old ways of gender relations might have made sense." It was okay in a particular setting, okay? Let's not judge too harshly here. "So Kenya, where my dad's from, polygamy existed," and then he sets out to justify it on the basis that women, because the guy had more than one wife, they had to have their own place to live.

All of these families couldn't live in the same place, that wouldn't work, so the other wives had their own property, i.e., compounds, presumably larger than the hut in which his brother lives, and certainly not like the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, don't be confused, but they still had their own property, the other wives. They had their own land and so they were self-sufficient. When does Obama support that? Self-sufficiency is the number one enemy of modern day liberalism. Back then, if you wanted a bunch of babes and you wanted to marry 'em, you needed 'em to be able to take care of themselves 'cause you couldn't support all of 'em.

So having their own property, their own compounds, and their own places to live, why, that was cool 'cause they could support themselves, didn't have to bleed you dry. Very sexist, by the way. And then urbanization came. Oh, yeah. They started building up the cities and the men wanted to be where the action was. There's nothing out there in the sticks. Just the wife and the kids in the compound. They started building up the cities, and there's excitement, there's clubs, and who knows what else. So the men, they migrate to the city and get married again.

See? And then there's another family in the city, and then you've got the other woman and the family out in the compound in the village, and then they may not end up being as empowered as they were because now the guy's got a preferred family in the city. But still, polygamy is what empowered women because it made them self-sufficient, it gave them their own compounds and property. That's what he's saying.

Now, if you are one of these future African leaders, and you're invited to a summit in the US to teach you how to do it, I would have to think that most of 'em are thinking that they've got a prize gig here. I bet these people think the US is a pretty great place and there's a lot to learn. This is a great opportunity, is my point, this is what they're thinking. What do they hear? They come in and the first thing they hear from Obama is ignore what we do, no great shakes here. Second thing is, polygamy? Hey, ain't so bad depending on if your dad liked it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I love this. This is so typical. I checked the e-mail during the break and there's a couple in there from some libs that think I'm taking cheap shots at Obama and polygamy. What happened here? I'm sitting here, I'm minding my own business, as I do every day, kind of like the United States, not bothering anybody, until it's time to liberate some people, then I go into gear. Or I get up every day and I look at the traditions, institutions I believe are under attack and I ramp up and defend 'em. And I'm called names for that.

I don't sit here and plot who to attack. I don't even look at myself as attacker. I'm a defender. So I get the audio sound bite roster and there's this thing in Washington called the inaugural Summit of Future African Leaders. And Obama gets a question about how can the United States help Africa deal with gender problems, and Obama brings up polygamy. I play the sound bite and I get attacked for taking cheap shots at Obama. And I didn't even bring it up. But let me maybe give some of you out there on the left some family history because Obama did say (paraphrasing), "Hey, now, wait a minute, now, wait a minute. These are traditions I'm talking about. Sometimes things and traditions are out there that you may not understand, they're okay."

I'm holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a paragraph from a story in the Washington Post on April 12th of 2012. Right here. And it was an opinion piece. "Obama and Romney Both Come from a Ancestry of Polygamy." It's an opinion piece. Again, I'm minding my own business and I'm just recounting something from the past. Washington Times, knowing full well that this was in Obama's past, had to go out and talk about polygamy in the Mormon church and bash Romney for it so that Obama didn't stand out on the subject. But Romney has never been part of a polygamist relationship. He's not had multiple wives, nor has Obama, but -- well, let me just read to you the paragraph.

"The line of polygamists in Obama’s family can be traced back generations in western Kenya, where it was an accepted practice within the Luo tribe," which Obama just talked about. "His great-grandfather, Obama Opiyo, had five wives, including two who were sisters." So not only was there some polygamy going on, there was some incest happening. Well, incest once removed by Obama's great-grandfather.

"His grandfather, Hussein Onyango, had at least four wives, one of whom, Akumu, gave birth to the president’s father, Barack Obama, before fleeing her abusive husband," Obama's grandfather. "Obama Sr.," Barack's dad, "was already married when he left Kenya to study at the University of Hawaii, where he married again." Obama's dad had two wives at same time. "His American wife-to-be, Stanley Ann Dunham, was not yet 18 and unaware of his marital situation when she became pregnant with his namesake son in 1961."

So the Washington Post, knowing this stuff was out there, had to do a piece on how Obama and Romney both come from ancestry of polygamy. Romney does not. And the one thing they don't -- you know, they'll clearly bash the Mormon church when it comes to polygamy, but they will not site the source of polygamy, say on the Onyango bunch here. And it's not Kenya, folks. If I tell you what it is I'll have the people at CARE all over me. Now, I'm just bringing this up because... (interruption) Back to granddad? (interruption) His grandfather, Hussein Onyango, had at least four wives. His great-grandfather, Obama Opiyo, had five wives, including two who were sisters. Well, it's incest once removed, if you want to look at it that way.

Hey, it's none of our business. Whatever worked for them, worked for them. That was Obama's answer to the crowd. That's why this all came up. It's my point, folks. You are a future leader of Africa. Somehow you've maneuvered yourself and you're a future leader of Africa, and there's a brand-new group, future leaders of Africa. You come to the United States. You get to meet the president of the United States, my God, what an opportunity. You get to ask the president questions about leadership. You might end up leading Africa someday. And what do you learn?

You learn the United States is not worth emulating and that don't be too quick to judge polygamy. I didn't say any of it. And we're only talking about it because Obama said it, pure and simple.